AUT: [DIYVID] Untold Stories of U.S./NATO's War and U.S. Media

["Harry M. Cleaver" <hmcleave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 17:56:00 +0100 (BST)
From: MichaelP <papadop@xxxxxxxx>
To: DIYVID Members <diyvid-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [DIYVID] Untold Stories of U.S./NATO's War and U.S. Media Complacency

This piece also contains a reference to The U.S. government felt that
foreign press coverage was so out of control
that  it became necessary to permanently create a new International Public
Information Group (IPI), made up of top military, diplomatic and
intelligence officials, to coordinate U.S. resources to "influence the
emotions, motives, objective reasoning and ultimately the behavior of
foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals." (Washington
Times 7/28/99) This new IPI organization will attempt to squelch or limit
uncomplimentary stories regarding U.S. activities and policies reported in
the foreign press. IPI is de facto censorship as it will use governmental
resources to repress foreign news stories that may reach the American
public.

Cheers
MichaelP
=========================================
Untold Stories of U.S./NATO's War and U.S. Media Complacency

By Peter Phillips
Director of Project Censored

The mainstream media in the United States were aware that the Pentagon and
NATO were releasing biased and false information regarding the war in
Kosovo yet they continued to pass on the information to the American
public as if it were gospel.

  "...the media were once more asked to sort out a few kernels of facts
from a barrage of distortions and half-truths from government information
manipulators...baloney-ladened military briefings in Brussels...cryptic
shows at the Pentagon," reports Senior correspondent for Newsday's
Washington Bureau, Patrick Sloyan. Writing in June's American Journalism
Review, Sloyan went on to describe how the elite of U.S. media complained
to President Clinton, but failed to use their power to challenge the
government.

That the U.S. Military and NATO kept the American public propagandized and
ignorant about our most recent war is a well known fact among mainstream
correspondents. Foremost in the undercovered or ignored categories, but
widely covered in Europe, were

   extensive civilian deaths (2,000+);
   massive damage to non-military civilian facilities in Serbia;
   the use of illegal cluster bombs and depleted uranium munitions;
  Devastating environmental pollution was created by the bombing and
burning of refineries and chemical plants.

The deliberate destruction of public utilities left many Serbians without
power, water and heating. Yet the Pentagon persisted in saying they were
attacking only legitimate military targets. How could all of this massive
civilian destruction just be collateral damage? Why was a public
television station considered a legitimate military target?

According to the London Daily Telegraph of July 22, 1999, "NATO's bombing
campaign against Yugoslavia had almost no military effect on the regime of
President Milosevic."

Based on a NATO inquiry the bombing "failed to damage the Yugoslav field
army tactically in Kosovo while the strategic bombing of targets such as
bridges and factories was poorly planned and executed." The U.S. bombed
cardboard tanks, wooden missile carriers, and phony blackened roads
wasting thousands of tons of bombs on false targets.

The French Le Nouvel Observatoeur in Paris (7/1/99) described how NATO
initially thought that two days of bombing would be enough and that
Milosevic would capitulate quickly. But as the bombing dragged on the U.S.
began hitting targets  not envisaged by NATO plans. A senior French
military official was quoted as saying, "The USAF refused to abide by
phase one, two and three. It intended to hit military and political
targets everywhere."

Another French official added, "We were on a the verge of an open clash
with Washington."

Widely reported in Europe was the fact that twenty high-ranking judges of
the Greek Council of State openly condemned the NATO attacks calling them
violations of international law, and polls showed that in Greece 95% of
the people opposed the bombings. NATO forces were repeatedly hindered as
they passed through Greek soil. An exemplary case was how Greek resisters
changed the road signs in Thessaloniki so that a convoy of NATO
armored-vehicles lost its way and ended up in a vegetable market of the
town instead of at the Greco-Macedonian border. (Dimitris Psarras, Athens)

The U.S. government felt that foreign press coverage was so out of control
that  it became necessary to permanently create a new International Public
Information Group (IPI), made up of top military, diplomatic and
intelligence officials, to coordinate U.S. resources to "influence the
emotions, motives, objective reasoning and ultimately the behavior of
foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals." (Washington
Times 7/28/99) This new IPI organization will attempt to squelch or limit
uncomplimentary stories regarding U.S. activities and policies reported in
the foreign press. IPI is de facto censorship as it will use governmental
resources to repress foreign news stories that may reach the American
public.

The U.S. government already uses private public relations consultants to
spin  and distort news stories on a daily basis to favor specific
ideological perspectives. How far will the mainstream media in the U.S. be
willing to go in ignoring this issue?


How can we conclude that  the mainstream media are free, when they give us
unsubstantiated  horror stories of rape camps, massacres, and a possible
100,000 Albanians missing, while the military was racking up Serbian
civilian targeting and keeping our allies in the dark?

Where was investigative reporting, where was the public's right to know?

Has corporate media abdicated it's responsibility to the First Amendment?

Only a strong system with internal checks and balances in mainstream media
will protect the public's interests. Diversity of news sources (both
foreign and domestic), ombudsman, and reporters with tenure rights are
needed in the media today to counterbalance governmental spin doctors and
the media elite's self interests. Anything less means a continued
deterioration of informational freedom in the United States.

Peter Phillips Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Sonoma
State University and Director of Project Censored

Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Sociology Department/Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
707-664-2588

    .............................................
    Bob Olsen, Toronto      bobolsen@xxxxxxxxxxxx
    .............................................


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